Dinosaur
Training author, Brook Kubik, wrote (in Hardgainer mag issue 44).."what
do you do if you only have a barbell? - no stands, rack or bench?" He said
you deadlift and press. "Don't you think you'd be big and strong all over
if you could standing press big poundages and deadlift two or three times as much?"

Tsatsouline
takes this philosophy and runs with it in Power To The People.

Tale
of the Tape: PTTP is about 125 pages, including a few ads for his other books.

What's
the book about?

Maximum
strength using minimum exercise and training time

Using
bare minimum equipment (a Barbell)

Very
few sets & reps

Never
train to failure

Flexible
training cycles

Whilst
it mainly concentrates on strength rather than size, Pavel does include his "Russian
Bear" routine

Tsatsouline's
book revolves around just 2 exercises, done for just 2 'work sets' each with just
5 reps in each set. Read that again. Yes, just 2 exercises and 2 sets of 5 reps!
Your entire workout is done with 20 reps.

The
first exercise is the the deadlift. Pavel much prefers it to the squat - although
you wonder if it's because Pavel looks more like a (albeit a bit skinny)
deadlifter than a natural squatter. That the deadlift is one of the most productive
exercises you can do with a barbell is nothing new. So from that point of view,
Power to the People is a bit seen-it-done-it.

His
second exercise is the Side Press. - the old time strongman lift. Basically you
hike a barbell overhead with one hand. Yes that's right, just one hand.
Arthur Saxon could hoist over 300lbs that way and Pavel reason's that if you can
get strong in that, then that's good enough.

I
do have slight reservations about using a one arm barbell press as the mainstay
of the book. Firstly the torque created by a centrally held barbell makes balance
tough and increases the risk of injury. I wonder if just substituting it for say
a regular two handed, barbell clean and press would mean you shifted a lot more
weight in a safer manner, which in turn would stimulate more overall strength.
Anyway, the PTTP principals can be applied to any exercise, so the choice is yours.

Never
trains to failure - echoing the way Olympic lifters train + similarities to John
McKean and John Christy's writings.

No
gloves, no belts, no mirrors and no fancy training shoes.

Easy
to read - ecletic use of quotes from Mark Twain to Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Not-so-Good
Stuff:

The
writing is a bit cheesy. He hams up the "Evil Russian" bit a lot.

Actually
it's a bit more than cheesy, it often comes over like those 3 page "Finish
a Fight in 3 Seconds using Secret Russia Special Ops techques" adverts.eg. "Build Massive Muscles
with a classified Soviet Special Forces Workout" - classfied? huh?

You need to buy a
barbell or have daily access to one.

Doesn't
fully explain some of his theories, instead he asks you to trust him and says,
"The Party is always right". Highly frustrating.

There's
not that much in it. 2 main exercises - one of which, the deadlift is well documented
by every weight training author out there.

Could
have been a bigger book, 125 pages isn't much for the money - see above.

Or
it could have been a MUCH smaller, much cheaper book. Lots of padding.

Pavel
cherry-picks quotes from other Strength Writers that agree with his theories,
yet the methods those writers employ are totally different to PTTP. For example,
he quotes Dr Ken Leistner several times to support PTTP, yet at the same time,
trashes the HIT method that Dr Ken avocates. Same with Ken Hutchins and Super
Slow. And he quotes Stuart McRobert in his "Power to the People Manifesto"
- even though he is against the training method that McRobert promotes. Odd.

The
2 page chapter on Power Stretching is just an ad for another book of his.

Ad
for the $159! 'Paveliser' Ab machine - er, I thought Tsatsouline was against
isolation exercises and the PTTP was supposed to be a cheap, low tech
philosophy? Or do we just trust the Party again?

Pavel's
methods have certain similarities to the way Olympic lifters train - ie. Very
low reps, never to failure, long rests between sets, frequent training (if you
follow Pavel, you'll know he's up for training 2-3 times a day). It was
also very similar to John McKean method of 'Single-ing" (McKean is a champion
weightlifter in Old-Style lifts, like the Hip lift - he also trained his phenomenally
strong son).

PTTP
also shares similarities to John Christy & Stuart McRobert's work to a certain
extent - ie. abbreviated routines to avoid overtraining. His "Russian Bear"
routine is very similar to the German Volume Training (GVT) that was trendy a
few years ago - so in theory it should work - although some actual evidence of
succesful PTTP trainees is scant.

But
does it work?

Yeah.
Sort of. I tried it after a very long layoff and within 8 weeks moved my deadlift
from 80kgs to 200kgs. Training was novel and fun. Doing only 4 work sets lets
you fit a workout in pretty much anytime day or night. However my own gain was
a strength regain - ie back to previous levels of strength. After that
I needed to cut down on frequency - Deadlifting once a week was better. Which
brought me back to a McRobert style of training. However, your recovery abilities
may be better, so it's worth a shot.

In
theory it works, but I wonder if the 2 exercise, 20 minute a day regime is tailored
as a 'quick fix' sales pitch than actually the most effective way to train given
the same amount of time per week.

Conclusion

Despite
reservations, I did enjoy this book. Well worth getting if you have an interest
in strength training. It's particularly good if you're looking for a way to train
with minimal equipment.

It's
cool to be able to fit in a quick workout at anytime of the day - eg. you can
get one in whilst waiting for the kettle to boil for a cuppa - and doing only
2 exercises for 2 sets is a refreshing change. Because you never train to failure,
the routine doesn't leave you wiped out, like, say a HIT routine.

But
I don't think I could recommend it to a skinny 'hardgainer' looking to gain strength
and mass. The McRobert Brawn series of books would be much better for that,
as I know it works. However, if you've got a few years of weightlifting
under your belt then it's well worth a blast - and you could use the same methods
to train Olympic style exercises like the Push Press, Overhead Squat, Power Clean
etc.

Where
to buy : From Amazon.co.uk

Power
to the People by Tsatsouline - get strong on only 2 exercises/sets a day. Buy
it *